The feature discusses current and alternative pieces of equipment available to SAR agencies and includes a ‘Rescue Basket’ section which references the Heli-Basket HB2000 15 person Multi Person Helicopter Rescue basket.
‘Another option is the Heli-Basket HB2000, a rigid cage that can take as many as 16 people to safety. The HB1000, meanwhile, can rescue six people. Both are manufactured by HeliBasket LLC in the US. HeliBasket has partnered with Integral Risk Global to market and distribute the equipment, and is also the only the company that HeliBasket endorses to deliver training using both baskets.
Martin McGrath, Director of Integral Risk Global, reports that the company is pursuing approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the HB2000 as a complex personnel carrying device system (PCDS). Approval is expected to be granted in 2019. McGrath explained: “The approval will allow owners and operators to pursue operational approval through their respective aviation authorities.” If the Heli-Basket platform is going to be used for human rescue by agencies whose aircraft are civil aviation registered, then civil certification will be required. For operators of military or state registered aircraft, it will be for the authorities in question to certify the equipment for use’.
The Link below will take you an article I wrote on LinkedIn covering some of the points from the MS Viking Sky emergency on 23 March 2019 off the West coast of Norway.
A cyclone feared to have left a thousand dead in Mozambique is possibly the worst weather disaster ever to hit the southern hemisphere, the UN has declared, Sky News Reports
Some 1.7 million people were said to have been in the path of 105 mph Cyclone Idai in the East African nation while hundreds of thousands more were affected in neighbouring Malawi and Zimbabwe.
Storm surge floods up to 20ft deep had caused ‘incredible devastation’ over a huge area, World Food Programme regional chief Lola Castro said.
“Rescue crews are still struggling to assess the devastation caused by Cyclone Idai which swept in at speeds of up to 170 kph (105 mph) from the Indian Ocean late last week, hitting Mozambique, then its inland neighbours Zimbabwe and Malawi”
As is often the case after these type of environmental or natural disasters, the event itself is only part of the problem. Roads and bridges have been washed away, so rescue agencies are unable to reach those trapped or isolated.
Sadly, many more are likely to perish as a result of them being trapped or isolated and out of the reach of rescue agencies.
Multi Person Helicopter Rescue is part of the solution. The ability to airlift supplies and medical equipment in, and carry vulnerable or injured casualties out in the same lift cycle.
On 25 January, in the heartland of Brazilian mining, a dam collapsed releasing 11.7 million cubic metres of toxic mud.
A month on, bodies are still being found.
Few will have missed the news reports describing the devastation caused by the dam collapse on 25 January 2019. Actual footage of the collapse can be found with a brief search if you’re that way inclined, but it’s the devastation after the event that is truly shocking.
Every day at 08:00, 78-year-old Darcy Dias da Cunha arrives at his local cemetery. It’s on the top of a hill, and as the sun continues to rise, he looks out over the small city of Brumadinho.
Overhead, the deafening sound of helicopter rotor blades fills the air. Rescue workers are being ferried out to the mud that lies like a rust-red scar through the valley. They will not cease their search for bodies until dusk.Darcy, a father of 12, has spent every day at the cemetery since the dam collapsed. Here he sits, waiting for the call that will tell him the body of his 27-year-old daughter Rosaria, a mother of two, has been found beneath the thick, toxic mud.“I’m just waiting for her to arrive,” he says. “I know the morgue will call the cemetery as soon as they identify her.”
Global News have also posted a video that shows the extent of the devastation.
Time is arguably the most crucial factor associated with emergency rescue situations. Did you know that the Heli-Basket® HB2000has a 15 person transport capacity? Imagine the critical time saved when rescue capacity is multiplied by fifteen!
Benefits of the Heli-Basket® HB2000 include:
Carries over 2,000kgs or a 15 person rescue capacity
Can access all locations and environments (High Rise Buildings, Maritime Vessels, regions effected by Floods, Earthquakes, Volcanos, Hurricanes/Typhoons/Cyclones
Is not CofG Sensitive – The load can be dispersed anywhere within the Heli-Basket® without it affecting in flight stability
Significantly increases Golden Hour Capabilities
Ideal for mass short-haul rescue
Suitable for entire population demographic – young, old, conscious, unconscious, injured…
The Heli-Basket can be powered through the Electric Long line, providing light and potentially life saving power during the rescue
The Heli-Basket® can also be utilised for cargo and relief operations within the same flight mission:
Quick and easy to load and unload
Increases load efficiencies
Optimises point-to-point logistics
Self balancing load
Once the Heli-Basket is cleared, everything within it becomes a ‘Cleared Load’
Rigid aluminium frame protects the load
Can take modular loads
Can be fitted with a self contained water filtration unit for relief operations
Can be fitted with self contained generators for providing additional power
The Heli-Basket® also improves efficiency and safety to ground crew:
Improves ground safety and obstacle clearance when deployed with the Remote Electric Hook
Helps to avoid brown/white out
Offers quicker turn around times – further improving life saving efficiency
Maximises rescue/loads per hour – reducing operating costs.
Multi Person Helicopter Rescue is a surprisingly cheap operational enhancement. If your agencies operate with, or are supported by helicopters, then the Multi Person Helicopter Rescue can be added to existing capability for the equivalent of a few months fuel costs!
IF YOU COULD SAVE MORE LIVES, FASTER, WHY WOULDN’T YOU?
Typhoon Mangkhut and Hurricane Florence – two major storms, 9,000 miles apart.
Two of the year’s biggest storms (probably!) made landfall this weekend; Hurricane Florence hitting the Carolina’s in the South East United States, and Typhoon Mangkhut sweeping through the Northern Philippines and on to Hong Kong and South East China.
Typhoon Mangkhut has been described as a Super Storm – a Category 5 storm with winds up to 180 mph. It is the 15th storm to have hit the Philippines this year.
There were fears that the storm could repeat the levels of death and destruction seen after Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 – Haiyan’s fury affected more than 14 million people across 44 provinces, displacing 4.1 million people, killing more than 6,000 people, and leaving 1,800 missing. In addition, 1.1 million houses were either partially or totally damaged, 33 million coconut trees (a major source of livelihoods) were destroyed, and the livelihoods of 5.9 million workers were disrupted.
Thankfully, it seems as though Typhoon Mangkhut – although nearly as powerful, has not led to the same level of destruction. At the time of writing, 65 people are confirmed dead and a further 43 remain missing. It is estimated that around 250,000 people were evacuated prior to the storm making landfall.
As is often the case after natural disasters, the subsequent rescue and disater relief operation is being severely hampered by blocked roads caused by landslides making it almost impossible to get rescue equipment to areas where its most needed. Sadly, those landslides also appear to have buried dozens of people making it that much slower in being able to to clear them.
The Philippines is no stranger to natural disasters. Not only does it sit on the Pacific Rim Of Fire making it very susceptible to volcanoes and earthquakes, but the country is also ranked at the second most effected in the world by tropical storms. Being a densely populated archipelago of over 7,000 islands, means that the effects of those frequent natural disasters often have a disproportionally heavy impact on its population.
The Philippines is hit by an average of around 20 tropical storms per year and increasing sea temperatures will only increase that number. So it’s hardly surprising that the government invests around 2 percent of its national budget in climate-change adaptation and risk reduction.
So the country takes its situation seriously and is working hard to address the causes of rising sea temperatures, but without a significant global response, the Philippines’ climate change actions and measures are likely to have little impact in isolation.
So prevention measures are clearly vitally important, but countries like the Philippines will never be able to prevent all natural disasters – or even most of them.
Post emergency response planning is therefore equally important – perhaps more important (if we accept that we can never alleviate the causes of most of these natural disasters).
Access to the post storm emergency areas is once again a major problem for the rescue and relief effort. Landslides have blocked roads – the area most heavily effected by Mangkhut is quite remote, and with infrastructure damaged or reduced in capability, getting rescue machinery, medical supplies, food and clean water to the areas is proving difficult. Post incident access problems is a common symptom of large scale natural disasters and is often the cause of further significant loss of life.
Helicopters form the cornerstone of many relief operations, but helicopters aren’t always utilised to their fullest extent.
With robust forward planning – and training where necessary, equipment can be pre-positioned in strategic locations around a country such as the Philippines, which can go some way to address the post incident access problem. Medical supplies, Power Generators, Water Filtration Pumps, Food and Water can very easily be loaded and pre-positioned and then delivered utilising remote point to point helicopter logistics.
Those same delivery methods and equipment can then be used to carry rescue personnel to a position of relative safety, where longer term care and support can be provided.
The Pacific Ring of Fire is a string of volcanoes and sites of seismic activity around the edges of the Pacific Ocean. The tectonic activity along the Ring of Fire results in about 90% of the world’s earthquakes, including the Valdivia Earthquake of Chile in 1960, the strongest ever recorded earthquake at 9.5 out of 10 on the Richter Scales
The Ring of Fire is also where an estimated 75% of the planet’s volcanoes are located, such as Mount Tambora of Indonesia, which erupted in 1815 and became the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history.
All but three of the world’s 25 largest volcanic eruption of the last 11,700 years occurred at volcanoes in the Ring of Fire
Probably a good place to stay away from, right??
The problem is that some of most densely populated countries and cities on earth sit directly on the Ring of Fire.
Lima, Quito and Santiago in South America. San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco in North America.
Then you have whole countries with large, dense populations that are situated on the Ring of Fire. Japan (127m people), Philippines (103m people) and Indonesia (267m people).
The volcanoes in Indonesia are among the most active of the Pacific Ring of Fire – and there are lots of them!
Lombok August 2018
Recent events have reminded us of just how vulnerable Indonesia is, when a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit Lombok on 5 August 2018. In the following days, a number of powerful aftershocks have hit the same region – one measuring 5.9 magnitude on 9 Augusts.
At the time of writing, 436 people have been confirmed killed and up to 350,000 have been displaced or directly effected by the earthquakes.
The vast number of people that are living on the Pacific Ring of Fire meant that further incidents will continue to occur. Whilst the frequency of volcanic and earthquake events does not seem to have increased over recent centuries, the population explosion in the region means that the effects of these events are becoming increasingly severe.
According to the Red Cross, aid groups are struggling to reach the epicentre of the Lombok earthquake, located in the northern, more residential part of the island. Their path is blocked by heavy debris, damaged jungle roads and the risk of further landslides.
So if we cannot prevent or reduce the regularity of such events, and we cannot reduce the population in the direct vicinity, then all we are left with is the ability to improve our reaction and capability after the events.
Multi Person Helicopter Rescue
Multi Person Helicopter Rescue may offer little to tackle the cause of the volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunami events, but as we have seen in Indonesia recently, the misery, suffering and loss of life continues long after the tremors have ceased.
Multi Person Helicopter Rescue can fly food, water and medical supplies in to cut-off areas, and then fly injured or trapped personnel out in the same Heli-Basket; making rescue efforts more effective and efficient.
Hell-Baskets can be fitted out to become self contained water filtration units and generators and can be dropped by helicopters and running operationally in seconds.
Helicopters are already being used in the rescue effort; with the right equipment, training and forward planning, they could be so much more effective in limiting the life threatening situations that exist long after the actual disaster event occurs.
With the continued shift towards urbanisation – particularly in developing countries and economies, cities are being ever more squeezed for space. In order to overcome the increasing demand for office and residential units, and as land prices continue to increase, cities and developers are building more and more high rise buildings to heights that previously seemed unimaginable.
Quite how you define a high rise building is subjective, but for the purposes for this article, I have included buildings above 100m (328′).
We know that conventional fire fighting equipment (ladders and hoses) are able to reach around about 7 floors (approx 30m), but frankly, trying to identify the number of buildings above 30m is impossible – there are tens of thousands of them!
According to Wiki, If we only include cities with 10 or more, there are 22,791 skyscrapers over 100m around the world! 3 cities – Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen (all in China), have 5,650 alone!
How many of those cities (or individual building owners) do we think, have a coherent rescue plan for the evacuation of multiple personnel and casualties in the event of an emergency where fire escapes are blocked, filled with smoke or are unusable for any number of reasons?
I don’t know the answer, but I would be quite confident in guessing that few, if any, know how they would carry out a high rise evacuation of multiple personnel who are trapped above the level of a fire or major incident.
Multi Person Helicopter Rescue isn’t the only solution, but it’s one that has been proven to work. In 1993 – 8 years before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 28 people were rescued from the rooftop of the WTC after a terrorist bomb had been detonated in the parking garage beneath the towers.
So we know that roof top helicopter rescues can work in high rise building evacuations – in fact, they’re likely the only realistic option when internal escape routes are inaccessible. Yet few, if any cities have considered the option.
Multi Person Helicopter Rescue from high rise building emergencies is not feasible in every emergency situation. The Grenfell Tower fire in London in June 2017 is one example where the fire was largely fuelled by external cladding and so spread very rapidly engulfing the upper floors and roof top area. Multi Person Helicopter Rescue from the roof top area would not have been possible in that example. However, in many cases it is!
It is becoming more politically and socially unacceptable for lives to be lost when solutions that could have saved lives already exist.
With over 23,000 high rise buildings above 100m in height around the world, forward thinking risk mitigation and planning is more important than ever.
With many of the worldʼs modern cities being squeezed for space, an increasing number of high rise buildings are being built. It is estimated that the top 10 high rise cities in the world account for over 6,000 skyscrapers (buildings over 100 meters) alone. Even in older, more established major cities in Europe such as London, Frankfurt and Moscow there are buildings being erected to previously unseen heights for both residential and commercial use.
During emergencies, the high-rise building presents several unique challenges not found in traditional low-rise buildings; longer egress times and distance, evacuation strategies, fire department accessibility, smoke movement and fire control. The multiple floors of a high-rise building create the cumulative effect of requiring great numbers of persons to travel great vertical distances on stairs or in elevators in order to evacuate the building.
Very few cities if any, have a coherent plan for rescuing high numbers of trapped occupants in the event of an emergency. It is generally accepted that conventional fire and rescue services have ladders and equipment that are able to extend and reach to around the 7th floor (approximately 30 meters) of a high rise building. In the event of a fire or terrorist attack such as those seen at the World Trade Centre in 2001, rescue services have to move up the building from within, get past the floor level at which the threat exists and then escort the buildingʼs occupants back down and once again have to deal with transiting through the threat area. With high rise buildings now reaching several hundred meters,there are thousands of buildings around the world with floor numbers in the hundreds – many floors higher than rescue ladders are able to reach.
Helicopters can and do offer a partial solution to these problems. Conventional helicopter rescue means a crew member being lowered on a winch, where they either assist on a one to one basis, or are able to lift up a casualty or trapped person – normally one at a time, but in extreme circumstances, two or maybe three, and carry them to safety where they can be treated or safely dispersed.
In the event where several hundred – or even thousands of people require rescuing, it would take an unimaginable amount of time to lift victims clear of danger using these methods and in all reality, would be impossible. Even in perfect conditions with a highly trained crew and expert facilities, it would easily take 6-8 minutes to reach, connect and carry a person to safety over even the shortest of distances.
It is accepted that helicopters offer the only realistic option for being able to reach and subsequently extract personnel from areas, buildings or structures that cannot be reached over land or through conventional access via stairs or elevators. Having already highlighted the time and logistical issues associated with conventional helicopter rescue, it is clear that using helicopters and combining them with expertise and equipment specially designed to tackle this very problem, is the key.
People jump out of a boat right before it overturns off the Libyan coast, Wednesday, May 25, 2016. The Italian navy says it has recovered 7 bodies from the overturned migrant ship off the coast of Libya. Another 500 migrants who on board were rescued safely. (Marina Militare via AP Photo)
Having the ability to access and subsequently rescue larger numbers of personnel during each lift cycle would clearly increase the speed at which those evacuees can be carried to safety and to medical attention where required. However, it is often impossible to land a helicopter in a position where personnel can access and board the helicopter directly. The principle of lifting or winching them away from the danger area is therefore often still the only viable course of action.
Integral Risk Global has exclusive distribution and utility agreements with Heli-Basket LLC for the supply and training of Heli-Basket® systems for use in Multi Person Helicopter Rescue operations. Heli-Baskets® are an external human load rescue and logistical support transport system for light, medium and heavy helicopters.
The design is derived from the need to maximise the numbers of rescuees in a single lift cycle, and minimise recovery times during the life crtitical “Golden Hour”.
The equipment design is based on the lightest structure that demonstrates aerodynamic stability in flight, ease of entry, ease of delivery and recovery, and safety in land and sea operations.
There are two main Heli-Basket models – the 6 person lift HB1000 and to the 15 person HB2000. Exceptionally, the 30 person and 50 person HB3000 and HB5000 can be offered too, although helicopter lift performance and operational restrictions mean that the HB1000 and HB2000 are the more realistic options for civil emergency rescue.
Having the ability to rescue up to 15 people on every lift cycle in a similar timeframe that it takes to lift just one or two people using conventional equipment offers the potential to evacuate many times more people from a burning building or structure, thereby substantially reducing the likelihood of mass casualties.
EXTERNAL LOAD OPERATIONS
The key to successful external load operations is high quality, robust, reliable equipment and operators who are trained in the proper methods and use of vertical reference flying. Heli-Basket has developed the most advanced equipment available for Multi Person Helicopter Rescue.
Together, Integral Risk Global and Heli-Basket offer the supply of Multi Person Helicopter Rescue equipment, whilst Integral Risk Global provides a source of operational delivery and training for all aspects of external load operations.
No matter which way you look at it, operating helicopters is an expensive business! A single base SAR operation will likely have multiple aircraft – each one costing several millions to purchase, insure, base (hangar) and role equip. That’s before you fly even a single hour!
You then have crew, support and management salaries to pay for and of course, every flying hour then attracts additional variable costs.
One of the biggest variable costs is fuel. An average medium size SAR helicopter such as the AW139 uses around 150 gallons of fuel per hour. With the cost of fuel at around $3 per gallon (Europe), that equates to around $450 per hour in fuel costs alone.
Larger aircraft such as the H225 and S92 use around 215 gallons per hour, so their costs amount to around $650 per hour in fuel costs.
In the year ending March 2017, UK SARH units flew 5,048 operational hours. If we use a conservative 200 gal/hr fuel burn for their S92’s, it’s reasonable to suggest that UK SARH spent around $3.03million on fuel alone in 2017.
This is where we can apply some perspective! A Multi Person Helicopter Rescue system* can be purchased for under $100,000. A 2-week training course for pilots, crewman and ground crew can be delivered for a similar amount.
The Multi Person Helicopter Rescue system has an operational lifespan of 10 years (or 10,000 cycles) and so its purchase cost over that period can be amortised to less than $10,000 per year – or just 16 hours of fuel for a H225!
If you could increase your Multi Person Helicopter Rescue capacity and efficiency by a factor of fifteen, for the equivalent cost of less than half of one month’s single aircraft fuel cost, would you?
It doesn’t sound very expensive at all now, does it?
*A Multi Person Helicopter Rescue System consists of Heli-Basket 2000 15-person rescue basket, 120’ Electric Long Line (strop), 10k Remote Electric Hook and a hook release Hand Controller.
As is often the case after these type of environmental or natural disasters, the event itself is only part of the problem. Roads and bridges have been washed away, so rescue agencies are unable to reach those trapped or isolated.
Sadly, many more are likely to perish as a result of them being trapped or isolated and out of the reach of rescue agencies.
The Ring of Fire is also where an estimated 
